Labour to give up on rural vote and focus on ‘woke’ Dubliners
NEW Labour leader-in-waiting Ivana Bacik plans to capture the ‘woke vote’ in Dublin as the party does not hold out any hope of a revival in rural Ireland.
Senior party sources told the Irish Mail on Sunday that Labour is focusing its rebuilding on the capital, where up to a dozen new seats will be created before the next general election.
This week the Irish Daily Mail revealed that the next Dáil will have 15 more seats to reflect population growth in Dublin.
And now Labour is planning to outflank its rivals on the left, the Social Democrats, by appealing to a younger generation of women voters in urban areas.
Under Labour rules, a leadership candidate must be nominated either by at least two members of its parliamentary party or at least five constituency councils. Nominations for the new leader will close at 12pm on Thursday, March 24.
If only one candidate is nominated, he or she will be deemed elected on the same day and it is expected Ms Bacik will be elected by acclamation. And party strategists believe she could be the catalyst for a mini-revival in Dublin at least.
The party also intends to target the Social Democrats with a view to reunification in the long term.
A senior Labour source told the MoS: ‘We are planning to out-woke the Social
‘We plan to out-woke the Social Democrats’’
Democrats and Ivana is uniquely positioned to do that.
‘Social Democrats co-leaders Catherine Murphy and Róisín Shortall have been around a long time. They are, with respect, old voices. Ivana has been around for a fair while too but she is relatively fresh to the public.’
The party also intends to chase soft Green and Sinn Féin votes in the capital. One senior strategist noted: ‘They are well positioned to do this, particularly in the case of
Sinn Féin. They do not look too good when it comes to respecting women and there’s likely more to come. The people might want a bit of a change but they don’t want a revolution. Ivana on a bike could be perceived as being the necessary brake.’
Former leader Alan Kelly had hoped that Ms Bacik’s stunning byelection victory in Dublin Bay
South would spark a revival in the party’s fortunes. Instead it ended in his own undoing.
One senior Labour figure told the MoS: ‘Kelly’s fate was sealed by that result. The party had an alternative. The public, or certainly the Aodháns and the Geds [Labour TDs Aodhán Ó Ríordáin and Ged Nash], didn’t want that old-fashioned, rural politics.
‘It’s Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats who are in the sights now. Don’t forget the Social Democrats were routed in Dublin Bay South. Sinn Féin were halted. They didn’t move a yard beyond Ringsend and the flats. It’s the last throw of the dice – it’s the only throw of the dice.’
Although the Social Democrats have been ahead of Labour in the polls, intergenerational tensions are said to be growing in the party.
One party source told the MoS: ‘There is a serious divide in that party between the youth wing – TDs Holly Cairns and Gary Gannon – and the pensioners at the top.’
The source added that younger party members are ‘ripe for the plucking’ under a unified left party led by Ivana Bacik. ‘Catherine and Róisín might prefer political annihilation to going back to Labour, but the younger generation would like ministries and place and preference. Watch this space.’